Trapped Between White and Black: Resulting Joe Christmas’ Doom in William Faulkner’s "Light in August"

Abstract: Racism is a prevailing concern in almost all the novels of William Faulkner. In Light in August Faulkner utilizes the idea of race so as to depict how people are persecuted by made arrays in the society.

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Joe Christmas is a character confounded with his whiteness or blackness on account of his mixed race. Joe's vicious activities speak to his endeavor to determine whiteness or blackness and significance in his life and are the consequences of an individual maltreated by a patriarchal social construct.

Joe Christmas knows nothing what his identity is and he will never relate to a class due to the artificially fabricated idea of race in the society. The society names individuals white or black so as to make clear the incitements behind the activities while, in fact, the activities people take are brought about by the cultural values. Ideas, that is, white and black are masculine and white classes that set as limits in the society. These convictions in the American Southern culture have adversely affected Joe as an individual and his identity. He is trapped between the shadows of Southern belief, which matters him to experience alienated resulting his fierce activities. Joe’s activities in this novel show how society can influence and enforce identity.

Thus, this paper exhibits how Joe is trapped between white and black and resulting his fall not because of a biological inheritance rather than social and economical as well. Most of the novelists of the 20th century America are renowned for their well portrayal of racism, that is, white/ black relationships as one of the few themes which they dealt with in their novels in detail and minutely.

It seems that the characters portrayed in the 20th century novels are in a way struggling with the then social norms of the American society.

William Faulkner, the author of Light in August, is greatly known as one of the well-established Southern American authors in the first half of the 20th century not only in respect of his innovative experimentations with the modernist techniques but also his intense introspections on the American history as well as the racial perspectives. In the 20th century, literatures of the South were flourished as the South confronted some cataclysmic events not only the American Civil War (in which the South was defeated by the North) and the Reconstruction era in the previous century but in the following century the First World War and the Second World War, bringing the Great Migration era. All these had prompted to a great extent in the academic career of William Faulkner to culminate in an unprecedented level of change.

Faulkner’s discussion of Joe Christmas in Light in August regarding his race, that is, white/black is, in this respect, conveyed the tragedy that arose in a rigid manner sticking to the concepts of racial identity. Faulkner looks at the roots and shows the impacts of Southern racism. The obscuring of racial limits through miscegenation is fundamental to comprehend Faulkner's concern as far as the Southern history and his significance in the scholarly canon. Joe could be portrayed as “another tragic result of miscegenation” (De Cenzo38). He has no idea about his origin and this ignorance causes him to feel that he belongs to neither the white nor the black community. Because of this white and black suspicion he “finds himself in a terrible existential condition in a struggle of self against self” (39).

Along these lines, we can see that Faulkner examines how the ‘self’ and the community work with each other. It is essential to take note of that readers never realize whether this character has black heritage; it is an uncomplicated way of miscegenation that renders him a fatal mulatto. De Cenzo rightly argues, Joe's torture is a consequence of “the unresolved mystery of his birth and origin” (39). The Southern whiteness has frequently been associated with the normative norms that in consequence produce a reinforcement of racial classes. Gender and race have contributed to ‘a specific modality of performativity’ that has brought about the desire of scheduling humans into particular racial beings (Rottenberg 2004, 436). When this racial categorization isn't always feasible, due to ambiguous identities, the white supremacist discourses get disrupted.

This dynamics of identification on the subject of ‘desire’ in its couple of facets eventually turns into the pathway to hybridity. Drawing from Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, Catherine Rotttenberg substantiates that the colonised subjects desire to cast back onto the colonisers who stand for authority (2003, p. 440). Accordingly, the colonised subjects progress in hegemonic structures while attempting to gain mimesis (Ibid.). Bhabha advocates in his The Location of Culture, that the colonisers and the colonized subjects are in a conflicting and competing concerns due to the fact on one hand, the colonisers need the subjectification and adherence to their set up norms associated with whiteness, however, alternatively, the colonisers must efficaciously differentiate themselves as white men from the others with a view to buttress the enthusiasm of colonisation and the white men’s desire to elicit subjectification from the others (Ibid.).

Rottenberg draws a perfect parallel with the racist discourse that possesses the desires of the black other to mime whiteness without ever attaining this mimetic endeavour as the racist discourse constantly flag the ‘non-whiteness’ of others to be able to exert the desire inside the other to stay as much as the norms of whiteness (Ibid.). Drawing from Freud, Rottenberg says that ‘desire-to-be’ and ‘desire-to-have’ are implicit in heteronormativity (Ibid, p.441). This as a result opens way for any other intellectual role as ‘identity’ is opposed to ‘desire’. The dichotomy lies inside the fact that the blacks, as said by Rottenburg, need to ‘desire-to-be’ white and the ‘desire-to-have’ an identification and their identification, therefore, lies on their desires of being white. Nonetheless, the struggle remains controversial because the ‘desire-to-be’ white does not validate the identification of the blacks. Notwithstanding, Bhabha substantiates that mimesis can also disrupt the colonial and the racist discourse of whiteness as it paves the route to hybridity and understanding the other as an identity necessarily (Ibid, p.440).

The concept of race, consequently, gives rise to the belief of hybridity and identity as well. The mixed race of Joe Christmas, readily, influences upon his identity: white or black. According to Nathalie Virgintino’s article Joe Christmas and the Search for Identity in William Faulkner’s Light in August, hybridity cannot be applicable in a world where there’s a stern binary system: man and woman or black and white. The racial device is such that it disallows the fusion of those nicely demarcated races. So, Joe Christmas does not suit in the ‘Grid of Intelligibility’ accordingly.

Therefore, it may be assumed in the beginning that this leads to his ‘disidentification’. Taking into account the argument established by the author, however, we take notice that the protagonist Joe Christmas does have an identity of a white. This justifies Joe Christmas’s secrecy and indifference on the subject of passing as, already, he is white and, thus, he does not have necessity to assimilate into whiteness once again. This, further, cites the only sided belief of passing. Passing is, particularly, (if not absolutely) the assimilation of whiteness, in no way of blackness. As argued, “identification with blackness under white racist regimes has, historically, not only been coerced but has also been coded as undesirable.” So to say, we take notice that hybridity has been forced to fit in the ‘Grid of Intelligibility’ as it, absolutely, loses its traits and flavor.

In Faulkner’s Light in August, the confusion about the mixed race of Joe Christmas is connected to DuBois’s concept of the veil, i.e., the double consciousness. The veil, that is a metaphor of the racial barrier of the colour-line, makes a bid as an obstacle for the person given that he is plunged in twoness. As the double consciousness narrates the feeling that one has more than one social identification, it becomes difficult to develop a sense of self. Joe Christmas reveals himself within the identical state of affairs, that is, “he is caught between two different social codes.”

Furthermore, the reality that he passes as a white already denotes one truth: whiteness is related to ‘purity, order, rationality, law, light and moral supremacy.’ Does passing by, then, means that blackness is related to ‘impurity, disorder, irrationality, lawlessness, darkness and moral inferiority?’ If it is so, we can validate that the racism is and will be an on-going method on the grounds that each whiteness and blackness have strong traits which worsen the troubles of the colour-line. This text also places forth that the race is amplified with the aid of ‘performative reiteration’. The racial norms are so continuously revised that they run to an internalisation of these racial norms. Such a circumstance benefits the whites because the racial norms related to them are the mostly nice and flattering ones.

The stereotypes related with whiteness are ‘civilized, intelligent, moral, hardworking, clean’ though blackness is related to ‘savage, instinctual, single, licentious, lazy, grimy.’ And hence, the stereotype subscribes in demonizing the blacks. Therefore, this upholds the motive why passing is one-sided: Joe wants to skip into whiteness because it has more prestige and respectability as well. Not only do the whites look down upon the blacks but the blacks also look down upon themselves. Hence, this is quite clear how much Joe needs for passing and the intention to be white. According to Mark C. Jerng’s scholarly article, ‘racial passing is the phenomenon of light-skinned mixed-race persons who hide their black heritage and pass as white in society.’ Joe’s concern is that the society does not recognize him completely as a white and this one-drop of African ancestry forebears him to carry the load of the stereotypes related with blackness.

When Joe Christmas and his mates bring an African girl into a shed to engage in sexual relations, Joe during his turn beats the young girl and his mates must draw him away from her. His activity is an aftereffect of the mistreated emotions he has due to the society. This very scene is a projection of ‘his confused feelings outward’ (Wittenberg 158). Joe's activities are his method of attempting to discover significance in a day-to-day existence in which he is caught by what John Lutz calls the shadows of the society. After the assault of the African girl Joe 'felt like an eagle: hard, sufficient, potent, remorseless, strong. But that passed, though he did not then know that, like an eagle, his own flesh as well as space was still a cage.”.

The reference of eagle, here, represents force and freedom, which Joe doesn't have in view of cultural as well as social structures. Despite the fact that Joe endeavored to break out of the structure, his ‘own flesh’ which means his skin colour impedes him to be free and keeps him in the frame of the society. The novel begins with the alienation of Joe: “there was something definitely rootless about him, as though no town nor city was his, no street, no walls, no square of earth his home” (Light in August 31). Through his activities, Joe is endeavoring to characterize himself, his personality and status in the society.

At the time when McEachern goes to the dance to discover Joe, Joe says, “I said I would kill him some day! I told him so!” (Light in August 206). Joe's brutal activity of executing McEachern is an aftereffect of subdued sentiments he had about his adopted father. “Joe's personal history is representative of his cultural past in that his own life of violence reflects that of his community” (Schrieber 76). All such brutal behaviours Joe took from McEachern as we see when he beats Joe for not remembering the catechism, “carefully and deliberately McEachern laid the book upon the ledge and took up the strap. He struck ten times” (Light in August 150).

After Joe murders McEachern he turns into a vagabond for a very long time down “a thousand savage and lonely streets” (Light in August 220). Joe's quest for identity is a widespread human march to characterize the ‘self’. In the society of the Southern America, race “is a function of community recognition of the performance of race” and the process requires “the participation of multiple members of any given community” (Nelson 58). At the time when Joe tells Bobbie, his whore sweetheart, about his racial identity she disregards it, however, later she says, “Getting me into a jam, that always treated you like you were a white man. A white man!” (Light in August 217).

Despite the fact that Bobbie dealt with him like a ‘white’ man, Joe didn't carry on like one when he murdered McEachern with the chair. The society needs to name individuals white or black to clarify the inspirations driving activities when truly the moves people make are brought about by the structures in the societal arena. Such unbending divisions are what make Joe take an interest in savage activities, for examples, murdering McEachern and Joanna Burden. The people underscores that everybody must be characterized. While talking about Joe Christmas the people state, “He don't look more like a nigger than I do. But it must have been the nigger blood in him” (Light in August 349).

The ‘blackness’ of Joe is the thing that the townspeople recognise as a clarification for his conduct. Before Joe is caught he feels at ‘peace’ with nature in a way he never has before (Light in August 338). Joe has been segregated from the society for a huge amount of time and even though the entirety of his activities he has kept himself unable to characterize. At the time when he is meandering prior to going to Mottstown, he unknowingly ponders himself, “Here I am I am tired I am tired of running of having to carry my life-like it was a basket of eggs” (Light in August 337). He feels at ease after he purges himself by shaving and cleaning his face. He has encountered a resurrection since he has acknowledged himself as “suddenly the true answer comes to him” (Light in August 338). He has gone to the conviction that he should believe in what his identity is and he can't get away from his heritage.

Joe Christmas is a complicated as well as a clashed character made by Faulkner to depict the effect of human-made signifiers, for example, race in the society. Faulkner’s novel Light in August, “explicitly assails both the human tendency to categorize and the validity of the categories themselves” (Wittenberg 162). The social codes sway the human experience as should be obvious in the personality of Joe Christmas. Through his activities, readers can decipher how society can impact and influence character and the human experience. Joe Christmas was known as a ‘nigger’ by the dietitian, by Joanna and by the people of Jefferson.

His activities were not a consequence of what Gavin Stevens called ‘black blood’ but instead the instruction and education Joe experienced from the society. Joe encounters a reality made by the American Southern culture and society and his character depicts a complicated Southern encounter, the inward clashes that outcome from such a society and a constant human condition. James Baldwin in his essay On Being White and Other Lies (1984) says, “as long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you.” This idea properly fits in the case of Joe Christmas in Faulkner’s Light in August as he is presented to constantly vie together with his double identification by intending to be white and rejecting his black ancestry.

As Joe is born into an oppressed patriarchal society which is inevitable, Joe cannot stop it from patterning his personal life and, to some extent, even his identity. The racial stereotypes and the social hierarchies have similarly perpetuated his identification crises. As the white racist regimes have raised an exclusive partition between identity and ‘desire-to-be’ (Rottenberg 2003, p. 442), Joe is unknowingly advocated and desires to have attributes related to whiteness, however concurrently, the society compels him to well-known himself as a black because of the one-drop rule. Even though Joe tried to make himself free from the racial stereotypes and the social hierarchies of this oppressed society, his ‘own flesh,’ meaning his skin colour enacted as barriers to keep him confined (Virgintino 2011).

It may be stated that Joe Christmas’s wild behaviour is possibly because of this imposed race identity by the white supremacists. His disidentification from his blackness necessarily directed him to his loss of life due to the fact he cannot live by means of being white only. His black or African ancestry is a part of him in spite of his intentions to have the whites’ guarantee respectability and privileges as well. Unfortunately in the case of Joe, hybridity imprisons and traps him by means of the ‘shadows of racist and patriarchal ideologies’ refusing him the chance to ‘pass over’ even though he desires to do so: “That’s all I wanted.” Or “That don’t seem like a whole lot ask.”.